April 19, 2004

It's nothing personal folks

That was the first slide of a Power Point presentation I saw someone putting together on the airplane the other day, seriously.

"It's nothing personal folks..."

I wasn't trying to eavesdrop or pry or anything, but I couldn't help glancing over a couple of times... Doh! (please tell me I'm not alone on glancing over like that... )

Anyway, from what I could tell, the presentation was at least 30-40 slides with lots of charts and graphs and TONS of text on each slide... urgh, that is not a meeting that I would like to go to... but I digress....

"It's nothing personal folks..."

That is just wrong on so many levels.

First: Okay, then why are we here?

Second: Yeah, actually, it is personal.

Third: So, you don't care about me... then why should I care about you, this presentation or this company?

I wanted to lean over to the guy and suggest another approach: Get rid of the Power Point and instead take a boom box into the meeting and play that song "We're in this love together, we've got the kind that lasts forever."

Think about how much different people would have FELT about any "discussion" that followed....

Why do people like power point, and presentations, so much? I don't want to be sold to or entertained when it comes to making decisions. What I want is pertinent information, preferably in written form, to study at a time of my choosing.